When and How a Judo Contest Ends: Analysis of Scores, Penalties, Rounds and Temporal Units in 2018, 2019 and 2021 World Championships

The main aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between how contests end (scores or penalties), the temporal units and the competition rounds regarding when the contest end in the 2018, 2019 and 2021 Judo World Championships. A total of 2340 contests involving 2244 elite judo athletes (1343 men and 901 women) were analysed. Pearson’s chi-squared (χ2) was implemented to analyse the association between variables, and the standardised residuals were used to analyse its interpretation; the strength of the associations was reported as Cramer’s V. Shapiro–Wilk and Kolmogorov–Smirnov were implemented to test the normality of the length of golden score (GS) sequences, and Kruskal–Wallis was applied for analysing GS sequences by championships. Mann–Whitney U was also implemented if a significant effect was detected. The level of significance was set at 0.05. The results were as follows: (1) Most contests ended before the accomplishment of the regular time (BRT), and they were won by ippon. (2) During BRT, the defeated accumulated more shido than the winner, while the opposite happened in contests finishing at the regular time (FRT). (3) Contests ending in the first and third minutes decreased, while contests ending in the second and fourth minutes increased; a longer length of the GS period was observed for women compared with men. (4) BRT contests were overrepresented in rounds 1 and 2, while extended time contests (EXT) in repechage, semi-final, bronze and final were overrepresented. (5) There were fewer waza-ari than expected during the preliminary rounds and more in the final rounds. The current study reveals cornerstone information that could be used to improve the training programs of elite judo athletes.